Dealer profile Vindis Groupike all children that are told not to do some­thing, Jamie Vindis is back at the VW Group specialist business his family has run since its inception in the 1960s after specifically being told not to.At first he followed his parents' advice to go and do something else rather than join the business which has 19 franchise points across Cambridgeshire, Bedford­shire and Northamptonshire, representing VW, Audi, Skoda and Bentley. He spent almost eight years working in the City achieving his own success, but the urge to come back was too appealing.He said: "If you're told not to do something it just appeals more. The more I explored and did different things in the City, the more interested and appealing coming back to Vindis Group became."It absolutely worked in my favour because if my path had been set from a very early age, there's a chance I would have totally rebelled against it."After the City he took a year out to complete an MBA at Cardiff Business School before joining the group. He said: "I was in a very fortunate position after that year, the directors allowed me to start working in the business with no particular role."I spent three months going through all the sites, every department, learning the whats, the whys and the hows. It was fantastically beneficial."How loyalty has brought success for Vindis Group Operations director Jamie Vindis on the issues and values that are important to the family business. Tom Seymour reportsContinuesLA head of business position became available at one of the group's Volkswagen sites. Vindis was then asked to run a site. It taught him a lot very quickly.He said: "The circumstances I went in with were fairly stressful and the business needed some assistance."All of the theoretical training in the world doesn't prepare you for the job itself. That first head of business role, walking in and knowing how to analyse accounts and KPIs and how to structure my thought process, was just a world away from what you can do when you stand in the business and everything is just happening around you. It's so frantic and it's so busy, I don't think anything can really prepare you."Vindis spent three years running the VW site and then the group decided to run with brand directors.The group went up to six VW sites and Vindis took on the brand director role for VW.He said: "It was interesting to see the day-to-day operation within the business and then the transition to sharing goals and working as a coherent single entity."Working as a group is something we really focus on."The brand managers that are still in place understand Vindis' ideas on the direction of the business.He said: "Much of my role is coaching and help to develop them, so we all grow stronger and become a better group."

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